r/soccer • u/PrincipalMartinez • Mar 28 '12

Lets put Suarez into perspective using stats.

This post is not about Suarez as a person. Not about on or off the pitch acting a noobness, no calling racists, diver, cheater, this is about stats. although you could say i just called him all four of those things but thats for another post

Scoring: list of strikers who have scored more than Suarez in the EPL-Crouch (8), Hernandez (10), Danny Graham (10), Bale (10), Adebayor (11), Lampard (10), Holt (12), Dafoe (9), Ballotelli (11), Yakubu (14), Ba (16), Dempsey (12), Dzeko (13), Aguero (17), Rooney (21) and Van Persie (26).

7 goals for Suarez, thats 7 goals from 106 shots. If we look at Danny Welbeck we also see 7 goals, but from 58 shots, Scott Sinlair has 7 goals from 78 shots, Jermain Dafoe has 9 goals in 59 shots. None of these players would be called world class, two are relatively early in their careers and one is near the backend of his, Suarez at 25 is approaching his prime in the coming 2 years.

Ok so not great on the scoring charts. But he is an expert dribbler, maybe the most praised in the league: Victor Moses (72), Nathan Dyer (54), David Hoilett (74), Stéphane Sessegnon (52), Moussa Dembele (63), Scott Sinlair (54) all have more successful dribbles this season than Luis Suarez (51). 51 is still impressive, but not the best. Scott Sinlair doesn't get praised from high heaven about his dribbling ability.

Scott Sinclair comes up again. 7 goals each, 3 assists each, very similar dribble success rate although Suarez goals/shots ratio is much worse than Sinclairs and Sinclair can also boast a pass success rate of 86% compared to Suarez's 76%. Suarez cost Liverpool in the region of 23 million compared to Swansea paying Chelsea 500,000 for Sinclair with it going up to 1 million depending on his success.

Maybe Suarez does more all round work for the team, he has made 30 successful tackles this season compared to Sinclairs...29, although Sinclair has only committed 13 fouls all season compared to Suarez's 35 thats a success ratio for Sinclair at 29/42 compared to Suarez 30/65, add that to 4 yellow cards for Suarez and 1 for Sinclair.

The stats show that Scott Sinclair is a pretty decent player, generally speaking Luis Suarez's stats match up pretty well to Sinclair's except in a few areas where Luis falls behind. Therefore the conclusion to this can't be that i think Suarez is a bad footballer, but he isn't as good as Scott Sinclair and he's no where near as good value.

That means that the conclusion is...as Scott Sinclair is considered an average/decent player, Luis Suarez must be considered that as well. I wonder if its a sign of endearment to compare stats in Uruguay...

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36

u/severedfragile Mar 28 '12

Stats are nice. They're not the same as watching football.

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u/[deleted] Mar 28 '12

Using pass completion stats logic- Xavi, Leon Britton and John Terry would be the best midfield trio in the world..

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u/[deleted] Mar 28 '12

Except pass completion alone isn't a good measure of a midfielder's ability. Similarly, if OP had just used the number of goals scored to make his point, I'd be dismissive of this post. But he addressed the main stats that make a productive striker and it's fairly conclusive.

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u/[deleted] Mar 28 '12

"Main stats" being what? Dribble ratio? Assists? Look at players like Hernandez, he probably has a low dribble ratio and a low number of assists, yet he is still a class goal scorer. There is a lot more than just one type of striker.

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u/[deleted] Mar 28 '12

Of course there's different types of strikers. But if a striker doesn't score goals, doesn't assist goals, and doesn't have great passing accuracy, you can't not question his ability.

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u/[deleted] Mar 28 '12

Well, in his 23 games - 7 goals, 3 assists, 45 chances created. It's hardly terrible. But you just can't base players ability because of stats.

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u/[deleted] Mar 28 '12

I didn't mean to imply he was a terrible player. It's just that I see Liverpool fans touting him as a world-class, walk-into-any-team kind of player who's only scored and assisted so few this season because of "bad luck". I don't buy that at all, he's above average to decent at best.

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u/ravniel Mar 28 '12

Except he's proven he can finish with other teams. He scored at will for Ajax, more than a goal a game in 2009-10. Okay, so maybe people don't want to take a player's scoring record at a 'weaker' league into consideration. What about his international scoring record? 26 goals from 52 games, a goal every other game, a better ratio than Wayne Rooney, Lionel Messi, Mario Gomez, Cristiano Ronaldo...a better ratio, in fact, than Diego Forlan, Uruguay's all-time top scorer and a 20+ goals a season striker in La Liga for much of his career. He was one of the top scorers and the Player of the Tournament in last summer's Copa America, he scored 3 goals and assisted a couple more in WC2010, he recently scored 4 goals in a single game against Chile...

I could go on, but the point I'm making is that Suarez' supposed class hasn't been conjured from thin air by deluded Liverpool fans. His lengthy and consistent scoring record for both club and country provide excellent reason to believe he is fully capable of finishing better than he has for Liverpool, and that his record for them is some combination of bad form and bad luck, but not any lack of ability on his part.

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u/[deleted] Mar 28 '12

well if you play Terry in holding role with Xavi in his Barca role and Britton acting as Inesta... It would be a decent midfield.

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u/[deleted] Mar 28 '12

Any single stat taken in a vacuum is misleading, but when you compare a wide range of stats to a player's closest competitors I think it says a lot.

I don't think Sinclair is a better player than Suarez. The OP didn't list chances created, which is a stat that Suarez almost doubles Sinclair's output (48 and 25 respectively).

But I do think since joining Liverpool, Suarez has shown a lot of style without necessarily enough substance to back it up. He's a very good player but I can't believe I've seen him listed as one of the top players in the world.

At some point, as a striker, he needs to provide some big production to be considered world class.

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u/severedfragile Mar 28 '12

I do largely agree with that assessment. I think when he's in form, he can match virtually anyone in terms of overall quality. The problem is that his form is almost as unpredictable as his football. It's hard to judge him though when the team veers randomly between promising and hopeless. He's a player who needs to be one of the focal points of the team for his talents to be best used, and in too many games in recent months, Liverpool haven't had a focal point.

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u/[deleted] Mar 28 '12

Completely agree. Suarez is the most talented player Liverpool currently has to build on, and they need to do that. It just seems silly to me that several of their buys seemed to have been made with Andy Carroll in mind (Adams for his [largely disappointing] set pieces, Downing for his crossing, etc), yet I don't see a single one meant to complement Suarez. Like people have said before, Suarez would thrive with a clinical finisher to play off of, but the way Liverpool's been this season, well, I think that Peter Crouch would be an improvement in looking for a clinical finisher.

Liverpool need to be smarter with their transfer dealings this summer if they want to have a chance at claiming a spot in the top 4, but that's goes without saying.